


can’t you see (there’s no other man above you)

by thekardemomme



Series: Anatomy [3]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Past Infidelity, Safe Sane and Consensual, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 18:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18665923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekardemomme/pseuds/thekardemomme
Summary: ”his eyes fill with tears before he can stop them, and he looks away in the hopes that lucas won’t see them. he doesn’t deserve the comfort that he knows lucas will blindly offer. lucas doesn’t know the truth, and if he did, he wouldn’t be wiping tears off of eliott’s face.”





	can’t you see (there’s no other man above you)

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: the behavior in this fic is not always healthy! you might not like the characters! you might not understand why i wrote them a certain way or doing certain things. that’s okay! sometimes, we can be shitty. sometimes, we do toxic things. sometimes, we hurt people. sometimes, most of the time, we’re not perfect. this isn’t meant to romanticize or condone any of their behavior, just simply to say this happens, and even our fav characters can be shitty.
> 
> title from hold up by beyoncé
> 
> fic #3: back
> 
> also warning for mentions of infidelity (JUST kissing) and a manic episode

eliott was the absolute worst at keeping secrets.

when he was younger, he’d told his mother every single birthday present he ever bought her, like, right after he’d bought it. he always spoiled surprise parties and presents and, once, he’d ruined an entire gender reveal at a baby shower. the only secret he’d ever really managed to hold onto was his bipolar diagnosis, but other than that, he was pretty much an open book.

especially when it comes to lucas. he tells lucas _everything_ now, so they had absolutely no secrets from each other. it was important to him that they had that, considering all the secrets and miscommunications from them first getting together. he didn’t want them to have to go through all of that again.

it’s been weeks, though, that he’s been keeping this secret, and he feels like he could explode.

lucas is sitting on eliott’s bed doing homework while eliott is at his desk, pretending to draw but really going over the million and one reasons why he absolutely needs to tell lucas the secret _now._ he’s been putting it off for too long.

finding the right time has always been way too hard, though. he knows he can’t keep it from lucas forever–because even if he doesn’t tell him, lucas will eventually find out from someone else and that’d be even worse–and he doesn’t particularly want to. he just really doesn’t want to break lucas’s heart, and he knows that… well, he knows that this will destroy him. and he hates to be the one to do that. he’d give anything to take everything back and fix it without lucas ever knowing–not for his own benefit, but for lucas’s.

“baby?” eliott murmurs, standing up from his desk and moving over to the bed. lucas smiles at him when he sits, and it makes eliott’s heart ache. he really doesn’t want to do this. “baby, i–”

“you look really beautiful today. did you know?” lucas asks, reaching up to brush some hair off of his forehead. “sorry, i didn’t mean to interrupt. you just do.”

“thank you, baby.”

lucas frowns. “why do you look so sad? is your drawing frustrating you that much?” his tone is teasing, but he looks genuinely concerned and allows his fingers to stay touching eliott’s face, just there on his cheek, and the touch burns more than it probably should.

“i… we need to talk,” eliott murmurs, and lucas’s frown deepens. “i have to tell you something, and it’s nothing good.”

lucas retracts his hand like he’s been burnt, quickly sitting up properly. he’s put some distance between himself and eliott, and eliott wants nothing more than to close the distance and hold him.

“are you… what’s going on? are you breaking up with me?”

“what? no, no. never,” eliott promises. lucas’s tense body eases slightly at that, and he scoots closer, taking eliott’s hand in his. “lucas…”

“you know you can tell me anything, right?”

and normally, eliott does know that. he takes full advantage of lucas’s unending love and understanding, tells him _everything,_ trusts him to comfort and love him through whatever is on his mind. he knows that lucas does the same–trusts him with everything. it makes eliott’s stomach flip to think of how he’d broken that trust, and how he’s about to break lucas.

his eyes fill with tears before he can stop them, and he looks away in the hopes that lucas won’t see them. he doesn’t deserve the comfort that he knows lucas will blindly offer. lucas doesn’t know the truth, and if he did, he wouldn’t be wiping tears off of eliott’s face.

but as it is, lucas does see, and he’s instantly pulling eliott into a hug. eliott tries his best to pull out of it, to tell lucas that he doesn’t want to do that, but lucas won’t listen. he just holds eliott, runs his fingers up and down his spine, whispers promises that everything will be okay.

“whatever it is,” lucas murmurs, “it’ll be okay. we can work through it, we can fix it. together. i promise. you just have to tell me so i can help you, baby.”

“don’t make that promise,” eliott whispers, voice coated with tears that he nearly chokes on. “you don’t want to make that promise, lucas. you don’t know–”

“i don’t have to, eliott. i don’t have to know. i know that i love you and that’s enough, okay? let that be enough, baby.”

“lucas, i fucked up.”

“just breathe and calm down, and then we can talk okay?”

“lucas, you don’t–”

“just breathe.”

“i kissed someone else.”

the whole room seems to come to a screeching halt, dead silence filling the room as lucas’s entire body turns to steel. it’s probably only a few seconds but feels like hours before lucas is moving again, wrenching himself out of eliott’s grip and standing a good ten feet away from him like he can’t stand to be near, eyes wide and vulnerable.

all of the air is sucked out of the room with every heaving breath lucas takes, the rise and fall of his chest probably going double time, along with his heart. eliott can’t breathe, now. he’s distantly aware of tears dripping down his cheeks, but lucas isn’t crying, is hardly even _moving_ beyond the heavy breathing, and the whole thing scares eliott to death.

“you did _what?”_ lucas wheezes, and eliott has to look away.

“do you remember– do you remember my last episode? when i was manic?” lucas nods, so eliott barrels on. “and that night that i went to that party and you told me not to drink? well… i was just so annoyed with you, i guess, for telling me not to drink. and i wasn’t in my right mind, obviously, and so i decided to drink. and i got fucked up, lucas. i got blackout fucking drunk and i woke up in someone’s bathroom and i didn’t remember anything at first. i came home and took a shower and eventually some shit started coming back to me, and i remembered some girl kissing me.”

“so… so _she_ kissed _you?”_

“yes, i think so.”

“and you… you pushed her off, right?”

eliott feels the sob lodge in his throat. “eventually, yes. i think we made out a little but… i was so out of it, lucas, i– i don’t even know how i ended up in the bathroom, or what alcohol i drank. i just remember she kissed me and i kissed her back before i realized what was happening and i told her i had a boyfriend. i’m so fucking sorry, lucas.”

“why didn’t you tell me before now? this party was almost a month ago.”

eliott shrugs, “i don’t know. i didn’t want to hurt you, and the more i put it off the harder it became to find the right time. but i didn’t want you to hear it from someone else, i wanted you to hear it from me.” he looks up at lucas, at where he’s standing so fucking far away, and he holds his hand out desperately. “please, lucas. you have to know that i would never do anything like this if i was in my right mind. i was manic and way too drunk, and it wasn’t good and i’m sorry i let myself get so out of control, and i’m so sorry that i didn’t tell you before. i’m just– i fucked up, lucas. i really fucked up. and i’m so scared that–”

“just stop,” lucas interrupts, and eliott chokes on his words. lucas isn’t crying, he isn’t choked up. he’s stoic, eerily calm, and eliott feels like he could explode. “i don’t want to hear all of this, all of the excuses and apologies. i just don’t.”

“please, lucas. i’ll do anything.”

“i know. that isn’t the point.”

lucas wraps his arms around himself and starts to pace, separating himself even more from eliott. the pacing makes eliott nervous, but he doesn’t say anything. he doesn’t want to set lucas off, he doesn’t want to make things worse.

“the point,” lucas continues, “is that you fucked up. end of sentence. you kissed someone else, eliott. i don’t know how i’m supposed to take that. i don’t know how to do this.”

“baby–”

“don’t,” lucas warns again, less malice and more sadness. “just don’t. don’t call me that, i can’t right now.”

“you know, i… this isn’t entirely uncommon,” eliott whispers after a long silence, and lucas’s head snaps up. “i know what lucille told you. that there were others. and i– i just want you to know that i won’t, like… the thing with lucille was different. what i have with you is different. and– some people, they’ve slept with other people while manic. cheated on their partners because they were hypersexual and couldn’t control it. it’s not like– it’s not like–”

“i know,” lucas murmurs, voice surprisingly soft. eliott meets his eyes and finds them a little bit warmer, a little bit more understanding. lucas takes a deep breath, a couple of them, and then continues. “i’m not trying to say that i blame you. i get that you were drunk and manic and i know you weren’t taking your meds, and i know… logically, i know this is different.” he presses his lips together like he’s trying not to cry, and then adds, “but then again, i don’t really, do i? because i’m sure there was a time when lucille was convinced of the same.”

“lucas…”

“i’m not saying that to hurt you,” lucas interrupts.

eliott nods, “yeah. i know you’re not. and you’re right, and i’m… god, i’m so sorry that you’re right. but you have to believe me when i say that it isn’t like that. i don’t even know who she was. i pushed her away, i told her about you, i told her about you before she even kissed me. i guess i might have been too friendly without realizing, sent mixed signals to her or something, and then...”

“do you miss being with girls?”

“what?” eliott asks, completely taken aback. of all things to ask, he’d expected lucas to be asking about who she was and what happened. but not that, never that. “no, of course i don’t. i don’t miss being with other guys, either. you’re the only person i want to be with.”

“yeah. me too.”

lucas still isn’t crying, and it scares the hell out of eliott. he’s too calm, too collected. lucas has always been the crier, so quick to break down into sobs when he’s hurt. so the fact that he’s not right now is fucking terrifying. eliott isn’t quite sure what to make of it–whether it’s good or bad.

he stands, slowly makes his way over to where lucas is still pacing. they stop a few feet apart, and eliott closes the distance, touching their foreheads together. lucas lets him.

“what can i do?” eliott asks, and lucas just shakes his head. “i’ll do anything, you know that. i’ll let you take a closer watch on my meds, i’ll stop drinking alcohol, i’ll–”

“i’m not asking you to do that, eliott. you’re a grown man and you’ve been taking care of yourself for so long, you don’t need me to do that. you don’t need a babysitter. i trust you.”

eliott’s eyes well up. _i trust you._ part of him thought he’d never hear those words again. “okay. then what do you need, baby? what can i do to make this even just a little bit better? i know i can’t fix it, but i want to try. if you want me to,” he whispers.

“you’re right, you can’t fix it. i don’t expect you to, though.” lucas reaches up, cups his cheeks. “i’m not mad at you, baby. i’m hurt and kind of confused, but not angry. i know these are special circumstances, and it’ll take some time but i’ll figure it out. but us… you and i, we’re okay. i promise. i forgive you.”

“you don’t have to,” eliott manages, voice straining around the tears that are continuing to build. “you don’t have to forgive me. i don’t deserve it.”

“yes, you do, baby. you’re not this malicious person you think you are. i don’t… i don’t care what lucille said about _others,_ okay? or, i’m trying not to care. i know you, and i know you love me. i forgive you, baby, and you don’t have to deserve that–although you do, don’t get me wrong. you don’t have to deserve it, though. you’re a good person. we all make mistakes but that doesn’t make us bad people. and you, especially, could never be anything but the best person i’ve ever known.”

eliott cries again, finally closing every centimeter of space between them and burying his face in lucas’s neck. lucas hugs him tight, like he’s trying to push all of eliott’s broken pieces back together. eliott wishes he could do the same for lucas, but knows that’s not what lucas wants. lucas doesn’t want a savior. neither does eliott, particularly; he just wants lucas, and everything that encompasses.

“you know what i want?” lucas murmurs, and eliott asks what. “i want you to fuck me.”

“what?”

“i want you to fuck me. i want to get on my hands and knees, i want you to open me enough just enough to fit, and fuck me. i want it to hurt a little bit, i want it to be fast and rough and i want to feel it tomorrow every time i sit down. that’s what i want.”

eliott pulls back, studying lucas’s face. lucas just smiles a little and reaches up to wipe the water off of his cheeks. he’s serious, eliott realizes.

“you’re serious?”

lucas nods. “i’m serious. that’s what i want. that’s what’ll make me feel better.” he slides his hands from eliott’s face to his shoulders, and he bunches the fabric of eliott’s shirt collar into his fists and pulls him closer. “i want you to remember who you’re with, eliott. i want you to think about how you made me feel. next time you’re at a party and a girl is flirting with you, i want you to think about me, sitting on the couch at home squirming because my ass is sore from when you fucked me last. i want you to think about how you couldn’t even look at me when i came, how you couldn’t kiss me, how you couldn’t touch me properly. i want you to think of all of that and remember how bad you want that, how bad you want to kiss and touch me, and how i didn’t let you. i want you to remember that i’m the only person you should ever want, and that no one at any party will ever be me. no one will ever touch you like me, make you feel like i make you feel. no one can love you as good as i love you, eliott.”

“fuck, baby.”

“that’s what i want.”

it’s weird, hearing lucas say all of that after the gentle forgiveness he’d offered. he’d told eliott he wasn’t angry, that he was a good person, and now it’s like he wants punishment sex. the whole thing makes eliott feel a little weird, like lucas isn’t in the right place for this and maybe he isn’t either. but lucas’s eyes are still warm and soft, and they’re a little blown by lust, and eliott feels himself getting harder by the minute.

he’s always been helpless to lucas’s seduction. he can be sneaky, sometimes, saying words to turn eliott on without warning. lucas is so shy about sex that hearing him voice these wants in such an explicit way always gets him going. he can’t fucking help it, he just… he wants lucas always, in every way.

before he realizes it, he’s nodding, and lucas gets to work on getting them undressed.

they don’t kiss, like lucas said. they just undress, and then lucas climbs onto the bed and settles on his hands and knees, face facing the pillows. eliott swallows his emotions and grabs the lube out of the bedside table drawer, squeezing a bit onto his fingers. lucas doesn’t moan when eliott starts fingering him like he usually does, but eliott forces himself not to care. if this is lucas punishing him, he deserves it. and anyway, there’s worse ways to be punished.

lucas whispers out when he’s decided he’s had enough, and though eliott knows he’s not stretched enough, he doesn’t argue. _i want it to hurt a little bit,_ lucas had said, and eliott isn’t in the business of denying lucas anything.

“condom or not?” eliott whispers.

“not,” lucas mumbles. “i want to feel you.”

so eliott braces himself and pushes in, going slow at first but with hushed urges from lucas, eventually speeding up. once he’s fully seated he gives lucas a second to adjust before starting to grind into him, picking up his pace much faster than he normally would. the air around them is thick with tension and heat and eliott kind of can’t breathe around it, so he focuses on the steady movement of his hips and how lucas is reacting to it.

lucas is not quiet, and eliott can tell it bothers him. he can tell that lucas had wanted to be quiet, but he’s never been all that successful at it. he’s always loud when he’s being fucked just right, and eliott always knows how to do that for him. he picks up his pace so the sound of their skin on skin is louder than lucas’s moans and whimpers, and hopes lucas appreciates the gesture, even if it’s deep down somewhere.

one of the best parts of sex is seeing lucas’s face light up with pleasure, watching his eyes flutter closed and then snap open and then flutter closed again. it’s frustrating that he can’t see lucas now. all he can see is the expense of his back and how his muscles strain to hold his weight up, how his shoulders quiver with every thrust of eliott’s hips. it won’t be long before lucas sinks down to his elbows, and eliott takes it as a personal challenge. lucas wanted rough. he can give him that.

“can you spread your knees a bit more for me?” eliott asks, and lucas obliges quickly. the new angle lets him so much deeper, and he props up one of his own legs to allow him better leverage.

suddenly, the sound of their skin is no longer able to cover lucas’s moans. thank god they’re alone.

eliott feels himself barreling towards release, and it doesn’t make him feel as good as it usually does. he starts thinking about how this is going to end and what’s going to happen after, and it makes his stomach twist around uncomfortably despite the undeniable pleasure everywhere else. he loses his rhythm and collapses forward a bit, nose pressed to the middle of lucas’s back. he takes in shaky breaths, trying to get his rhythm back up. he owes lucas this. he just needs to calm down. he needs to stop thinking and just take it minute for minute.

“are you okay?” lucas asks, and eliott nods, though he isn’t sure if he’s lying or not. “we can stop if you want.”

“i don’t want to stop,” eliott says, and that at least is the truth. he doesn’t want to stop because he doesn’t want to get to afterwards, he doesn’t want to know what’s going to happen then. “unless you wanted to.”

“i don’t want to unless you do.”

“end of discussion, then.”

somewhere along the way, he does manage to get his pace back to where it was before. his muscles are screaming with the use (though it actually feels amazing) and he’s still draped across lucas’s back with his nose buried against his spine. his hands keep making aborted motions towards lucas’s dick but he knows he’s not allowed to touch, knows he has to make lucas come like this.

it’s only a few more minutes before lucas’s moans give way to whines and he’s pushing back against eliott eagerly. he doesn’t tell eliott that he’s close, probably to avoid giving him the gratification, but eliott can tell. and when lucas does come, it takes everything within him not to coddle or touch him through it, and not to think too hard on the fact that he didn’t get to see anything other than his goddamn back.

eliott comes too, soon after, though he wasn’t sure he’d be able to. he pulls out and cleans lucas up with a dirty t-shirt, and then he strips the bed while lucas goes for a shower. the bed is remade by the time lucas is done and eliott takes his place under the water–he doesn’t usually like hot showers, but this time his skin is bright pink from the heat when he emerges.

lucas is curled under the blankets when eliott returns, and eliott hesitates. he isn’t sure if lucas wants him in bed next to him, though it _is_ eliott’s bed. if lucas didn’t want to sleep next to him, he could’ve gone home, right? or gone to the couch. he’d never take eliott’s bed alone, not even if he was sick or if they were in a fight.

“are you going to come to bed?” lucas whispers into the dark, and eliott’s questions fall flat.

his overheated skin relishes in the cold of the fresh sheets, but eliott wants nothing more than to curl around lucas and feel his warmth again. but he isn’t sure if it’s his place right now, if lucas wants to be held or if he just wants to hurt for a little bit. he wouldn’t blame him for whatever he chose, even if what he chose was–god forbid–that he changed his mind and didn’t want to be with someone who could ever cheat even out of hypersexuality or mania.

eliott wouldn’t blame him at all for that. lucas deserves someone normal, someone who doesn’t lose control of themselves. after everything he’s gone through in life so far, lucas doesn’t need this too.

the guilt is going to eat him alive, someday. eliott is sure of that. he’ll carry the guilt of burdening lucas for the rest of his life. he doesn’t deserve lucas and he knows it, and he’s so fucking selfish for clinging on so tightly when lucas could be with someone so much better for him. someone who doesn’t have pills to forget and doesn’t get drunk out of revenge. someone who doesn’t make out with a stranger at a party and then hide it for a month because _i didn’t want to hurt you._

“i can hear you thinking,” lucas whispers, and eliott doesn’t say anything. there isn’t anything to say, and he doesn’t really trust his voice. “stop torturing yourself, eliott.”

“i’m sorry.”

“if i hear another apology, i’m going home.”

eliott knows it’s a joke, but he tenses anyway, and bites back a fresh round of tears. if he keeps crying at this rate, he’s going to dehydrate himself. he’s pretty sure that’s possible.

“please don’t go,” eliott murmurs.

lucas sighs, rolling onto his side and facing eliott for a moment. “i’m not. i’m not going anywhere. i promise.” he caresses eliott’s cheek for a moment and then rolls back over so his back is to eliott once again. eliott is so tired of seeing his back. “i could ask the same of you, you know.”

“ask what of me?”

“don’t go,” lucas whispers. “i don’t want to lose you.”

“you’re not going to.”

“lucille said there were others,” lucas murmurs, and eliott closes his eyes. he’d known that lucas was full of shit the moment the words _i don’t care what lucille said_ came out of his mouth. lucas always cares. he cares about everything and everyone because his heart is so damn big (full of love) and so damn heavy (years of being hurt and let down and abandoned) and eliott doesn’t know how he carries it in his chest sometimes. he doesn’t know how it fits, and how lucas holds it up. he admires lucas for that strength. “i’m scared of this being the beginning of _others._ i know you love me, but you loved lucille too. you were with her for years. and i can’t– i know you can’t always control it, but i–”

he can tell that lucas is struggling to make his feelings known without saying something shitty about eliott or bipolar disorder, and it breaks eliott’s heart that it’s come to this.

“i’m so fucking sick of losing people that i love because i’m not good enough,” lucas finally decides to say. “i wish i could say that it doesn’t hurt anymore, not since my dad. but it does, every time.”

eliott reflects on that. he thinks of how many people lucas has loved and lost. he thinks of yann, and how he’d left lucas alone on the bench after he came out. he thinks of lucas’s father, who abandoned him and barely makes an effort to be in his life at all. he thinks of lucas’s mother, briefly. mostly though, he thinks of himself, and how he’d bailed on lucas more than once, and how lucas has accepted him back to willingly every time. how many chances lucas has given him.

“i don’t want to lose you,” lucas whispers again.

“you’re not,” eliott swears. “i wish there was a way i could prove it to you.”

lucas takes a shaky breath. “there is.” another shaky breath, a small sob. “stay with me.”

“i’m right here, lucas.”

the next sob strikes through the air in the room like it’s shattering glass, leaving shards and edges all around for eliott to cut himself on. eliott scoots forward and wraps himself around lucas, pressing his front against lucas’s back and trying to hug him tight enough to piece him back together.

trying to be the savior.

but lucas, between sobs, starts pushing at eliott’s hands.

“please don’t, eliott,” lucas cries. “i need you next to me, okay? please stay next to me, just don’t– i can’t– but i need you to stay.”

“i’m right here.”

eliott pulls away and returns to his side of the bed, listening to lucas cry himself to sleep and fighting every single urge to do something about it. lucas doesn’t want the comfort, he doesn’t want to be touched and kissed and held. eliott wonders if lucas is punishing him again, but quickly realizes that’s not the case.

none of this was to punish eliott. the sex, the sharp words, the crying with no reprieve. it wasn’t to punish eliott, it was all to punish himself. _i’m not good enough._ present tense, firm. like fact.

but eliott doesn’t reach for him. not even when the crying quietens and his breathing evens out with sleep. _don’t,_ lucas had said.

so eliott doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @elullemant
> 
> the body part was: back


End file.
